


don't wanna know if he's holding onto you so tight

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: I'm awful, M/M, TW: Suicide, Unrequited Love, anyway i almost cried while i wrote this, light alcoholism, poor john :(((((, well sorta unrequited love i guess, why am i obsessed with making my favorite characters suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8003704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>we don't talk anymore, we don't talk anymore<br/>we don't talk anymore, like we used to do<br/>we don't love anymore<br/>what was all of it for?<br/>oh, we don't talk anymore, like we used to do</em>
</p><p>;;</p><p>you just don't think he missed you enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't wanna know if he's holding onto you so tight

**Author's Note:**

> "i dare you to write fanfiction about a bottle of wine and a thinmint cookie"  
> \- anonymous, tumblr, 2k16
> 
> alright, anon. i accept your dare. here it is. you'll notice that the wine and thin mint cookie are both in it.
> 
> the poem in this is by angela pilant, and it's called "6 lonely tears."
> 
> the song in the title and description is "we don't talk anymore" by charlie puth ft. selena gomez.

 

_first i shed a single tear because we are apart,_

_wanting nothing but to be with you_

_to make a brand new start._

It has been almost three years.

Three years since you’ve felt like the child you never got to be; three years since you found your father, dead, killed by the hands of Bec Noir; three years since Vriska mind-controlled you to die on your quest bed; three years since you’ve talked to Dave. The journey has changed you all, you think. In small ways. Jade is less carefree than she used to be, and the bags under her eyes grow ever-more apparent the more she loses sleep—you haven’t set up a prank since you were fourteen, since this journey first started—and Davesprite, well. Davesprite hasn’t really changed, but you think that’s because he’s always been the same feathery mess.

“Hey,” you hear from behind you while you’re leaning against the bow of the ship, and you jump so high that your windy powers kick in and your feet float off of the ground for a moment before you land back onto the ship with a hollow _bam._ When you turn to see whoever it was that disturbed you, you find that it’s Jade. She’s smiling at you, but it isn’t the same smile she used to have; it isn’t wide, isn’t bright, isn’t like a thousand watts of light—it’s shallow, careful, guarded. You love Jade, really, but you’re sure she isn’t the same Jade Harley that was. “What’re you doing out here, John? It’s gotta be like, one in the morning. Maybe? I mean, time is kinda relative here, but if I had to guess.”

You give her a weak laugh in response, do your best to seem like the happy John Egbert you once were, the one she remembers. But you can tell by the look in her eyes that she knows you’re faking; that you’re just trying to make her feel better, and you hate that you can’t even be happy enough to make your own sister feel better. “Yeah,” you reply, turning away and leaning back over the bow. Your elbows hurt from leaning for so long, but you ignore it. “I guess I should be sleeping. I’m just not tired. Also, if I stay awake I can avoid nightmares, so that’s always a pretty good bonus.”

There are tears in your eyes and you could not will them away if you tried. You know exactly why you’re crying—you’re crying for the same reason you’ve been crying for the past two years, into your pillow to muffle the sound of your sobs because you wouldn’t want to wake anyone up. Just because you wallow in self-pity daily doesn’t mean everyone else has to be dragged into your pity and revolve around you like depressed planets. You miss him. You miss Dave. And you’re scared—you’re scared that, with all of those troll girls on that meteor with him, he decided that waiting for you was not enough and he could just date one of them. They’ve got those quadrants to fill, don’t they? You doubt his crush on you even lasted after he told you, and

and

he probably doesn’t—care. You aren’t that great of a guy, anyway. You aren’t sure if you’d wait for yourself if there were plenty of other fish in the sea, plenty of other people around you to choose from. It wasn’t like he loved you. “Woah,” Jade says, now from much closer. You almost laugh at the way she draws out the ‘o’ in woah, but you just don’t have it in you anymore. You’ve lost the spirit, you suppose. In retrospect, that’s a bit sad, and you’re sure that if Rose were around she’d say that because Rose was never afraid to speak what she thought. “What’s wrong? Was it me? I’m sorry, John! I didn’t mean to—”

You cut her off with a wave of the hand, wiping your face with the back of your hand. “It’s not you, Jade,” you reply, closing your eyes so that you don’t have to look at her, don’t have to see that sympathetic look on her face that you can’t stand because it makes you feel worse than you already do for making Jade feel bad. “It’s just. Dave.”

“Oh.” Jade says stiffly, but you know she understands. Jade was always good at understanding. It’s one of the things you love about her; that you didn’t have to pour your heart and soul out for her to understand, that you didn’t have to cut yourself open and pour salt in your wounds for her to get what you meant. She just—she understood. She touches her palm softly to your back and starts rubbing in gentle circles. You sob and she stops, instead pulling you into her arms and letting you tuck your head underneath her chin because you are only five feet tall and she has got to be pushing five-eleven. “It’s okay, John. It’s okay. I’m here.”

_the second tear i shed is a lonely tear indeed_

_my mind goes wild, my body goes numb_

_and my heart begins to bleed._

Once you’ve finally made it to the meteor, the first person to greet you and Jade—the only two of your three left, because Davesprite said he had some things to take care of so he’d have to leave the two of you to your own devices. The sprites hadn’t come with you, instead opting to get off at a different place and explore a separate part of the meteor. “Hello,” Rose says, patiently, calmly, and when she opens to her mouth to say something else, likely along the lines of ‘how’ve you been?’ you and Jade cut her off by tackling her in a hug. She laughs delicately, eloquently, and she is just as poised in person as you’d expected she’d be. “Well. This is certainly a lovely greeting, I’ll say. If you’re curious, I’ve missed the both of you, too.”

You pull away first, but Jade lingers in Rose’s arms for another moment. When she pulls back, you can see that look in her eyes; the same look you give when you think of Dave moving on, of him finding someone else that isn’t you. Jade is in love with Rose Lalonde, and it is painfully obvious. “Where’s Dave?” You ask, finally, because you’d been doing your best to refrain from asking the question but you just couldn’t help yourself. You’re giddy, alright? Dave is your best friend, and you haven’t talked to him for three years. Rose smiles gently, grabs you by the hand and tells you she’ll take you to him. By the look in her eyes, you know something bad is waiting to greet you, and you aren’t entirely sure if you can handle it.

You find Dave in what Rose informs you is the ‘common room’ with Karkat, on a sofa, watching a movie together. The closer you get, the more apparent it becomes that they’re sitting closer than your average friends would, and once you finally make it right behind the couch, you find that they’re holding hands. Tears brim in your eyes. You pretend they aren’t there, but you know that Rose and Jade see them clearly. “Hi, Dave,” you say, and your voice is choked, crackled, sounds like you haven’t had water in years. “Long time no see, huh?”

“Oh, hey John,” he says, offhandedly, and he doesn’t even get off of the couch to come see you. There is a rough pang in your heart that you try your best to push away. “Yeah. Three years is hella long.”

Rose steps in, now. “John, why don’t I show you to your room?” She asks lowly, and before you’ve even got the chance to answer she’s dragging you out of the common room by your hand and tugging you down the long stretch of hallway where the doorway to the room is, right to the end, to a room that’s entirely deserted aside from some bedding. “I apologize. I didn’t realize that Dave and Karkat were—I wanted you to find out they were matesprits on your own time—and I’ve—well I’m—oh, anything I say will sound like a vain attempt to be sorry. I didn’t know we’d find them like that, John. And I certainly didn’t know seeing you would be so underwhelming for Dave. I really thought he’d be happy.”

You swallow thickly. “Maybe he was just hiding it.”

Rose nods once, and you know that she believes that about as much as you do. Jade is standing a few steps behind her, nibbling at her bottom lip with her buckteeth, the same nervous habit that you’ve got. You turn to step inside your room, but before you can, Rose is grabbing you by the arm and pulling you into a hug. Your forehead is squashed against her chin because though she is not quite as tall as Jade, she’s still much taller than you. “It’ll be okay. You’ll pull through, I’m sure of it. You’re a strong boy, John. You always have been.”

You nod against her and then turn away, stepping into the room— _your_ room—and shutting the door behind you. It locks with a soft _click_ and you hurry over to the bed, yanking the covers off and wriggling under them, pulling them over your head and finally letting yourself cry. You are numb from your head to your toes and your head is fluttering with thoughts of _he likes Karkat more_ and _he’s in love with Karkat, especially if he ignored you, his best bro, the way he did_ and you’re sure that your heart is bleeding, steadily, the blood dripping carefully through your lungs and to your stomach and pooling there, all of your sadness floating gently over the surface.

_the third tear i cry wanting to feel your touch,_

_to taste your kiss and lips on mine,_

_i want so very much._

Vriska tells you that in the timeline where she wasn’t on the meteor, Rose was a huge alcoholic, but in this timeline, Vriska stopped her from drinking before it got too bad. You can’t stop yourself from tearing the place apart in search of any traces of alcohol left over, and while you’re in the middle of that task Dave interrupts you. “Hey, listen dude. I’m sorry about the other day. You’re my best bro, and I shouldn’t have just ignored you like that because I’m with Karkat. You didn’t deserve that shit. No hard feelings?” He says in one breath, like he always did. He’s the same Dave Strider that he has always been, and you hate him for it, envy him.

Though you feel the blood that has dripped from your heart overflow your lungs and stomach and float up to your throat, you reply through it, with a, “It’s fine. No hard feelings. Best bros forgive best bros, right?”

You hear his feet pad quietly against the floor and over to where you are—you suppose he’s so silent on his feet due to some strange Strider gene that separates him from normal people—and he tugs you by your bicep into his arms and then you are hugging your best friend, the boy you love who has moved on from you without even blinking. You pull out of the hug first, which you’re sure makes him suspicious because you are not the kind of person to pull out of hugs, but you can’t help it. The blood from your heart is suffocating you.

“Well, I gotta head,” he says, now. “Karkat and The Mayor are waiting for me in Can Town.”

Slowly, you nod. He waits by your side for another minute before you smile at him, and then he walks away, as though your smile was his blessing to go spend time with his boyfriend. Once he leaves and you’re certain that you’re alone, you continue with your search for alcohol. You’ve heard that it helps, with things like this. With _feelings._ With  _too many_ feelings. You think that your search may be in vain until your fingertips brush against cold glass and you grip onto it, tugging at whatever the thing is until you dislodge it from it’s space between a plush chair and a wooden cabinet. It’s a bottle of wine.

You hide the bottle beneath your shirt and all-but sprint to your room, shutting the door softly behind you, as to not raise any concerns. Once the door is locked and you’ve checked it over and over, you break the seal on the wine and unscrew the top, setting the lid on the table by your bed to be sure you don’t lose it. Then, you take a swig of the stuff, nose scrunching up at the bitter taste that falls on your tongue. It’s tinged with grape.

Because you’ve never really had alcohol before, it only takes you a few good sips before your fingertips are tingling and your thoughts are off somewhere else. You try to picture what it would be like if you were in Karkat’s place; if you were the one Dave loved, if you were the one he would kiss and touch and hold, if when he kissed you, he would taste like that apple juice he always seemed to love so much. You lean back against the headboard of your bed and sigh softly through your nose, trying to get yourself used to the taste of bitter grapes on your tongue that you’re sure you’ll be tasting again soon.

_the fourth tear i cry thinking of you at night,_

_wanting you to hold me_

_as i grip my pillow tight._

The next time you attempt to drink the wine, you’re sure that in earth time it would be late enough at night that everyone should be asleep. But, by your third sip, your doorknob starts twisting and before you can stop it from opening, the person on the other side has it wide open and the light from the hall is shining into your bedroom, bright enough that you have to squint. “John?” The person asks carefully, and you know that voice—it’s Jade. “What is this? Where’d you—is that wine? Are you _drinking wine_?”

You’d try to think up an excuse, but you know Jade would never fall for it. She’s too smart for that, knows you too well, can read you like a book. Every time you’ve lied to Jade, she’s caught you in the act, sometimes before you could even tell the lie you planned to tell. “Yeah,” you respond, deflating like a balloon. “I’m drinking wine.”

You aren’t surprised when she pushes her way into the room and shuts the door behind herself, clicking the lock. Then, she’s dragging you over to your bed and forcing you down on it, climbing into the other side and pulling you into her arms. You take another swig of the wine and you’re surprised when she lets you, but you think that’s only because she’s too focused on digging around in the bag you hadn’t even noticed she’d been carrying before now. “Alcohol is bad for you!” She announces quietly, grabbing the bottle out of your hands by the neck and you think it’s pathetic the way you chase after it with your lips. “Here. Have a cookie.”

She’s holding out a plastic tray to you, the kind that holds Oreos. You know she’ll bother you until you take one, so with a heavy sigh you snag one from the plastic and take a bite. Immediately, your mouth is overwhelmed by the taste of mint. In fact, you can’t even taste the bitter grape aftertaste that the wine leaves in your mouth anymore. “What kind of cookie is this?” You ask, finishing off the rest of it.

“Thin mint,” she replies. “You know, the ones that Girl Scouts sell. Or, the ones they used to, when earth actually existed. It looks like that was my last one though. Fuck. I guess I’ll have to alchemize more. Okay, whatever, enough cookie talk. What’s going on with you?”

You breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you were to tell anyone about your problems with Dave, Jade would be the first, but you aren’t sure you’re ready to, quite yet. Aren’t sure you’re ready to tell about the way you hold your pillow close to your chest at night and pretend that it’s Dave, that he loves you the way he loves Karkat, that you are not his second choice, the one he gave up on. “Dave.”

Jade sighs. You’ve never been more thankful for the way she can read you—the way that she can understand without you saying anything more than a name, without you explaining to her in explicit detail how you’re feeling, what’s going on. She pulls you closer to her, if that was even possible with how close you were already, and kisses your head. Her breath rustles your hair. You try your best not to cry, but fail miserably.

_the fifth tear i cry stains my pillowcase_

_my mind drifts off in la la land_

_as i take us to that place._

From that night on, Jade watches you like a hawk. You know she’s got that bottle of wine stashed somewhere in her room, but you know that if you tried to search for it, you probably wouldn’t be able to find it. And even if you were trying to look, Jade would catch you in the act. She starts leaving packs of thin mint cookies outside of your door, and whenever you leave your room and see them, you can’t help but give a small laugh—and even though the laugh is usually followed up by a sob, a laugh is still a laugh.

It isn’t long before everyone catches on to yours and Jade’s odd behavior. Rose is the first one to point it out, over your dinner that night. “So,” she says, conversationally. Everyone turns to look at her. You and Jade glance at each other quickly. “Why are you and Jade acting so strange, John?”

“Yeah,” Dave adds in. “You guys have been acting really fucking weird lately.”

You ready yourself to answer, but Jade does it for you. “Maybe you guys are being weird! We’ve been the same as we always are, you weirdos.”

Everyone looks to you, as if waiting for your agreement. When you nod softly, digging at your spaghetti, they look back to their own meals. Rose’s eyes linger for another moment, but eventually she heaves a delicate sigh and goes back to eating. You’re the first to excuse yourself from the table, and as you’re on your way to your bedroom, you hear Jade do the same. You step into the room and shut the door behind yourself, sure to lock it. You hear Jade start knocking on your door not long after, but you aren’t going to answer her, this time. You crawl into bed and pull the covers over your shoulders, up to your neck. And then, you

you

break apart.

You’re sure that you’d look disgusting, if anyone saw you. You start crying and sobbing about something you can’t even change, and you know that there is snot dripping down your face and that your tears are staining your pillow but you don’t care, you don’t. You try to find a place where Dave loves you, but it’s hard, and you aren’t even sure if a place like that would exist. After more time—you aren’t sure how much time—Jade stops knocking at your door and talking to you through it and she is replaced by someone else. “Dude?” You hear the new person ask, and you know immediately that it’s Dave. “John, look. I’m sorry, okay? I loved you too, you know.”

Your breath freezes in your throat. The blood from your heart overflows and your lungs burst and you can barely breathe, now. “It’s just,” he continues, and you thread your fingers into the sheet pulled over you and hold your breath, listening quietly. “Three years is a long time, and I—I couldn’t wait forever, John. I moved on. Maybe you should, too.”

“Fuck you, Dave!” You yell, and then your anger breaks apart and you cry harder, louder, bang your fists softly against your pillow and wish that you could reverse time.

_the sixth tear i shed my thoughts go very deep,_

_simply dreams of me and you_

_as i drift off fast to sleep._

Over the course of the next few days, you attempt to pretend that you’re doing much better. Jade buys it, sort of—she still keeps an eye on you, but less so than before. On a day when she seems distracted by other things, like talking to Terezi about God knows what, you ask Rose if she could alchemize you a bottle of Tylenol for a headache. She nods, of course. Alchemizes it for you, lets you go into the bathroom to take it with water and stands outside while you do.

You do your best to swallow as many of the pills as you can as fast as you can so that Rose won’t become suspicious, and you’ve got half of the bottle down before she comes bursting into the bathroom and snatches them from you, throws them into the wall and you listen to the small clacks as the pills fall out of the bottle and scatters everywhere. She holds you close to her chest and brushes your hair from your head, and you smile at her softly. “It’s okay, Rose.”

“God,” she chokes out, and you think she might be crying. That would be weird. You’ve never seen Rose cry before—sometimes, you thought that maybe her tear ducts had dried out and she had physically lost the ability to cry. “God. Jade!”

You can hear the sound of Jade’s footsteps pounding against the ground as she runs to the bathroom, and you hear her let out a choked scream before she’s dropping to the ground by Rose and pressing her lips to your forehead, mumbling against it, “You won’t die, you’re—you’re immortal, John! You’ll come back!”

You smile carefully. “I know,” you respond. “I’m sure if I try enough it’ll work. Right? Try until you succeed.”

You die in Rose Lalonde’s arms, but you know it’s only a matter of time before you’re back.

**Author's Note:**

> the end: basically, i forgot that if you're god tier, you can't die. i hope i saved it right.
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
